Who says the FA Cup has lost its magic

Blue Square North side Blyth Spartans subjected Shrewsbury boss Paul Simpson to the biggest humiliation of his managerial career.

Shaun Reay grabbed a first half double and Andy Leeson turned in the home side's third before Grant Holt's header made it 3-1 late on. It was still the shock of the round though, and Simpson admitted: "This is the lowest point of my whole managerial career.
"I am very disappointed, but you have got to give Blyth a lot of credit for the way they have played.

"Blyth outfought us, outran us and outplayed us in all areas of the field. We lost every individual battle on the pitch. The early goal gave them something to cling to and made a big difference, but with the players we had out there we should have won that match. We have let ourselves down by the way we have gone about the game."

Non-league Histon hit the headlines too as Daniel Wright grabbed the only goal to beat Swindon and manager Steve Fallon declared: "It's a fantastic day for us. We started well and went on to thoroughly deserve the win.

"Some of our players showed that they are capable of playing at a higher level and against a higher opposition so that will give us a lot of confidence going into the week. It's all going well at the moment and we have to keep that going in our game against Kettering next Saturday."

On the subject of Kettering, the Blue Square Premier leaders were unlucky not to see off League Two Lincoln at the first time of asking as the Imps earned a replay with a late Dany N'Guessan goal after Exodus Geohaghan had given the Poppies the lead.

The day's other big shock was Curzon Ashton's 3-2 win against Exeter who came back well from 3-0 down but couldn't find an equaliser in a dramatic finale.

Exeter boss Steve Tisdale said: "There is no excuse for the defeat and the players will have to ask themselves what went wrong. I didn't feel Curzon were a good side - they were average - but they had a good game plan and we contributed to our own downfall with a flurry of mistakes.

"I don't think we had any spark in the first half - they had a tactic of sitting off us and letting us play, but we didn't use the ball well enough. Our set-up play was excellent, but nothing really came out of it which meant we're rarely going to score."